The graders stopped, the cards started
Apples were sized and boxed in this shed for thirty-one seasons. The long sorting benches are still here, re-felted, six of them, and the cool store downstairs is where an evening begins. Nothing is wagered, nothing is won in cash, and none of it exists anywhere but on Summer Street.
A packing shed that stopped packing in 1998
The shed was thrown up in the fifties for one job: take apples off the trucks, run them over a grader, box them, hold them cold until the buyers rang. It did that job until the last local co-op packing run closed and the doors were chained.
We took it on with the grader still bolted down. The steel frame stayed, the sawtooth roof stayed, the cool store under the loading dock stayed, and the long benches where fruit was hand-sorted became the tables people sit at now.
It holds fifty-odd people comfortably and we stop there. Entry costs nothing, but the door is over-18s and staff will ask to see something with a birthdate on it.
Six benches
Hardwood sorting tables, cut down, re-felted, one lamp each.
A short board
Cool-climate cooking: apples, lamb, whatever the growers dropped off.
The cool store
Ten degrees year-round, and where the tasting happens at five.
Sawtooth light, brass tokens, cold store
What people ask before they drive out
- Is there a version of this I can play from home?
- There is not. This is a shed on Summer Street with six benches in it — no app, no account, no online room, no download. If you are not standing in the building, there is nothing to play.
- What are the tokens worth?
- Points, and only until 11pm. They cannot be bought, cannot be cashed and there is no pot, no prize fund and no wagering of any kind attached to them.
- Do you have pokies out the back?
- No gaming machines anywhere on the site. The loudest thing in the building is the ice machine.
- Should I book?
- For eating, yes, especially Friday and Saturday. For a bench, no — four of the six are open seating and you take what is free.
- Never played anything more complicated than snap. Awkward?
- That is precisely who Monday's beginners' bench is for. It runs an hour, costs nothing, and most of the Friday regulars started there.
- Can I bring a seventeen-year-old for dinner?
- No. The whole shed is over-18s, tables and dining room alike, with no exception for a meal.
Summer Street, the loading dock end
118 Summer Street, Orange NSW 2800
+61 2 6360 2284 · shed@playnovixs.com
Thursday to Monday, 3pm – 11pm
Which days the shed is open, and what runs
| Day | Open | What runs |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday | 3pm – 11pm | Cellar hour at 5pm, tasting in the cool store |
| Friday | 3pm – 11pm | All six benches, kitchen flat out from six |
| Saturday | 12pm – 11pm | Long afternoon, grading bench at 4pm |
| Sunday | 12pm – 9pm | Roast board, slow benches, early close |
| Monday | 3pm – 10pm | Beginners' bench at 6pm, free, eight seats |
| Tuesday | Closed | Orchard pick-ups and deliveries |
| Wednesday | Closed | Crew day off |
Six things we hold everyone to
Entry is for people aged 18 and over, kitchen included — ID is asked for freely and often.
Brass tokens count points for one evening. They are never sold, never redeemed and carry no cash value.
No stake, no pot, no side bet and no money passing between players anywhere in the building.
There are no gaming machines in the shed. There never have been and none are coming.
Take phone calls out on the loading dock — the hall carries sound badly and the benches notice.
Alcohol is served responsibly; if the crew calls time on you, that call stands.
Six benches, no money on any of them
The card room is the old grading hall — high sawtooth windows, concrete floor, warm lamps low over each bench. People play social card games here for points and for the company, and that is the whole of it.
House chips are the shed's old grading tokens, brass and worn smooth. They count points for an evening. They are not sold, they cannot be bought back, and when the lights go up they are worth exactly what they were worth at 3pm: nothing.
One of the crew runs the beginners' bench on Monday. The rest of the week the benches organise themselves and staff only step in to even up the numbers.
Four open benches
First in, first seated — no need to ring ahead.
Two held benches
Kept back for groups of up to seven, held by phone.
The beginners' bench
Monday, 6pm, one hour, free, no experience assumed.
Cooked from what grows at nine hundred metres
This is high, cold country and the cooking follows it: apples in everything from October, lamb from the paddocks past the airport, root vegetables, and cheese from two small dairies that deliver on Thursday.
The wine list is almost entirely from the district — chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, cabernet franc and a couple of cool-climate shiraz that surprise people. There is cider on tap made eleven kilometres away.
The kitchen shuts at half past nine. After that the bar keeps pouring and puts out cheese, bread and pickled things until the last bench finishes up.
Six dishes
Three small, two large, one pudding, rewritten every few days.
Fourteen by the glass
District wine almost exclusively, plus one cider tap.
After nine thirty
Cheese, bread, cured lamb and pickles from the cool store.
The shed, stencilled the way the fruit used to be
Every case that left this building carried a label like this one: where it came from, what grade it was, where it was headed. We kept the habit and pointed it at ourselves.
A seat for dinner, a bench for after
The phone is answered from 1pm and by someone who is actually in the building. Tell us whether you are eating, playing or both, and roughly when.
+61 2 6360 2284
Call the shed